FRUGALITY

Why This Blog?

I am on a pretty strict food budget; I also pray that my family and I will never go hungry, so after so many years of being creative with limited food supplies and money (including a three-pound whole chicken turned into 13 meals for the 5 of us), P-R-A-Y-S became a food and household budget philosophy.
It can be anything that keep you in line with your budget. Like PORTION, ROTATE, ANTICIPATE, YELL (from joy of having money left over) and SAVE.
Each post will show how this philosophy was broken down with every dish and budgeting I share. So hold on to your wallets and stay tuned!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Before the Market, Open Your Pantry

(Photo courtesy of Healthline.com)

Back in the Philippines, where I'm from, pantry is a luxury. Often, our excess non-perishable items are just on simple shelves. Unless of course, you have the means to have what we enjoy here in the U.S.

So often, we head to the market knowing exactly what what we want to eat and when. In more rural or poor areas, we go both before lunch and just before dinner so fresh food is actually, well, fresh!

Back to now and here in the U.S. Modern thinking led us to big massive containment. Both for saving time, gas and money. Well, if we look at it, are we really saving on all these three big factors of our lives?

Let's look at that, shall we? (I'm guilty of this, too as well as my husband)

We often get things we don't really need that only sounded great at the time or someone else convinced us to get it.

We don't organize our current stock so that we have an idea of exactly what we have therefore no time to organize what we can do with them.

We make a lot of food but don't really like eating it all or we eat it all within a few days and we're back to square one of not having enough.

We make too many excuses!

I've learned during lean times that change has to start with how I use what I already have before thinking I can afford what the stores offer.

So... I've learned to PORTION, REINVENT, ALLOCATE, YAMMER for ideas, and finally SOLVE my problems of what to do with what I already have!